Journal Number Four
by storyman123123
Summary: Takes place after Gideon Rises. With Gideon in prison, the Pines twins' summer life finally seemed normal. However, as Dipper pursues an inconsistency in Gideon's final plot, he uncovers something much bigger - and much more dangerous. Now, in order to save their beloved Gravity Falls, the twins must engage a familiar enemy threatening to destroy their way of life. NO PINECEST
1. Soos's Birthday

**Disclaimer: All rights go to Disney. I do not own Gravity Falls, or any of the characters.**

"C'mere, Soos! I need to talk to you about something," shouted Grunkle Stan from the cash register counter of the Mystery Shack. His scratchy voice reverberated through the house, and soon enough, the big handyman came lumbering into the lobby of the Shack.

"Sit down, Soos," said Grunkle Stan. Soos's usual bright smile started to fade. "Um, Mr. Pines? Am I in trouble?" he asked, the fear prominent in his voice.

"What? No, no! I'm here to talk to you about something else," Grunkle Stan replied, annoyed. Soos breathed out heavily, the relief visible on his face.

"Well, Soos, your birthday's comin' up," said Grunkle Stan, pacing slightly behind the counter. "And I know I say I'm a man of mystery, but for the life of me I don't know what'll make you happier than you already are. So tell me. What do you want for your birthday?"

"To be your son! Adopt me!" yelled Soos ecstatically, rushing over to squeeze Stan as hard as he could.

"Okay, let me rephrase that," Stan managed to gasp out through Soos's crushing embrace. "What do you want within reason?"

"To be your son! Adopt me!" yelled Soos again, squeezing harder.

Annoyed, Stan freed himself with difficulty and dusted himself off. "Fine. Plan B. Anything you want besides that?"

Soos sat on the floor with a _thump! _and scratched his sparse goatee. "Well Mr. Pines, I've always wanted to put a holiday into action. You see, my _abuelita_ doesn't feel as good as she used too. It's hard for her to take care of the house at all, let alone make any of my childhood favorite foods. So it'd be cool if the gang could get together and make our own feast, every night for eight nights, focusing on a favorite food from my childhood. It would be like Hanukkah, but with Mexican food. Mexifoodukkah!" Soos finished triumphantly.

"Whew! I don't know, Soos; that's gonna take a heck of a lot of energy!" breathed Stan exasperatedly. "But better than having you crush me again, I guess. Alright, let's do it!"


	2. Gideon's Robot

"Hey Dipper! Betcha you can't eat a tamale with twenty-five squirts of hot sauce!" yelled Mabel across the table, proceeding to take up her own challenge. She vigorously shook the hot sauce bottle over her plate, spraying hot sauce over the table.

The whole gang – Dipper, Mabel, Grunkle Stan, Soos, and Wendy – was celebrating day five of Soos's eight-day birthday-holiday mash up Mexifoodukkah with a massive tamale dinner. Soos's _abuelita, _though invited, had left the party early after stating that she felt a little sick to her stomach; however, all the others remained to enjoy the good food that they had prepared during the day.

"C'mon Dipper! Try it! Twenty-five squirts isn't so ba– so ba–ahhh!" Mabel reeled from the table, clutching at the armrests on her chair. Tears glistened on her eyes, and her red cheeks puffed as she coughed and wheezed for air.

Wendy laughed. "How's that hot sauce tastin', buddy?" she said through a mouthful of corn dough, roast chicken, cheese, and chilies.

"It tastes h-h-h-HOT!" Mabel yelled, scratching at her tongue.

"Hey, Dipper, you've barely touched your tamales," said Soos. "Something wrong with 'em?"

"Nothing's wrong with the tamales, Soos, they're great," said Dipper, poring over some notes in a new notebook he bought after Grunkle Stan took Journal 3, which he eventually forgot about. "But I just don't understand something about that robot, Gideon's robot. How did Gideon get enough fuel to power that robot? What kind of fuel did they use to be able to do that? And who on earth could build such a powerful machine?"

After the final fight with Gideon, analysts and police specialists had scoured the metals remains of the totaled robot to study how the robot functioned. However, they found no evidence of any power source, or any space at all where a power source would have usually occupied, and could only conclude that the energy source, and the energy source chamber, had been completely destroyed by the impact of the fall.

"Science, Dipper, science." Grunkle Stan simultaneously stuffed a tamale into his mouth and ripped open another one on his plate with a deft swipe of his knife. "Don't sweat it too much. If Blubbs and Durland couldn't figure it out, I don't know if anyone can." Stan burst out laughing. "Just kidding! Those two are morons. They probably couldn't even figure out how a bicycle works if their lives depended on it."

"Just out of curiosity, Mr. Pines, how does a bike work?" asked Soos.

"Probably more creepy magic he found in his journal," Mabel offered to Dipper through gulps of milk. "Speaking of which, where did that journal go?"

"Dunno," said Grunkle Stan, hastily resuming his personal race to see how much tamale he could eat in one sitting.

"Journals don't matter to me, unless they can explain this weird anomaly in the sequence of recent events," retorted Dipper, starting to get heated. He unconsciously stood up from his chair and started to pace around, his voice rising with every word he said, the worry lines etched under his eyes darkening as he rambled on.

"Gideon has amulet and can control people, like making Mabel go on a date with him; fine. Gideon has pins with his face on it that turn out to be secret cameras that were recording us twenty-four seven; though a little creepy, fine. Gideon has a huge robot that has no definable source of energy that manages to take out the entire side of a cliff with one robot punch? Not fine. Not fine!"

"Dipper, chill out, dude," said Wendy, gesturing at the table. "Have a tamale."

"I'm sorry guys," Dipper said, ceasing his pacing and sitting down at the table again. "I'm just bothered by this, is all."

"Don't worry, Dip. You'll figure it out eventually," said Mabel, smiling encouragingly. "But now is not the time for mystery-solving. Now is tamale-time! Tamale-time! Tamale-time!" she chanted.

Dipper hesitated, then grinned faintly and grabbed the hot sauce bottle. "Betcha I can beat your twenty-five squirts," he said quietly.

"Betcha you can't!" challenged Mabel.

"That's kind of redundant, Mabel," replied Dipper.

"Is it? I don't care!" said Mabel, laughing. "Redundancy is fun!"

Dipper couldn't help but smile at his sister's innocent insanity. As he shook the bottle over his tamale with Wendy, Grunkle Stan, Soos, and Mabel cheering him on, Dipper pushed aside his worries about the robot and decided to enjoy, or at least try to enjoy, the night with his friends and family.


	3. A Not-so-tearful Reunion

The next morning, Mabel awoke to find Dipper sitting upright on his bed, already dressed and deep in thought and scribbling more notes into his notebook. He looked up, seemed as though he was going to say something to himself, but then shook his head forcefully and jot down some more notes. She immediately knew that something was bothering him.

"What's bugging you, Dip?" she asked sleepily.

"Oh, nothing," he replied, refusing to look at her. "Just trying to figure some stuff out."

"You have a plan, don't you," Mabel said. It wasn't a question.

"Well, yeah. It's kind of obvious, but…" Again, Dipper looked as though he was about to say something, then shook his head slightly again. "Never mind. It's not a good plan."

"That's for me to decide!" declared Mabel, sitting up in her bed.

Dipper sighed. "I mean, it really is obvious. It's Gideon's robot that I'm worried about, so the next step in figuring out what's going on is to…" He stopped and closed his eyes.

"Visit Gideon in prison," Mabel finished for him, becoming impatient. "And what's so wrong about that?"

"Well, I don't want to have to make you go down there to see him, because I know you dislike him so much," Dipper said quickly, eyes still closed. "But I don't want to go down there and talk to him myself. So there's gotta be another person we can talk to–"

"Dipper, c'mon!" exclaimed Mabel. "I might think that he's the worst poophead there ever was, but that doesn't mean I'm _afraid_ of him or something." She laughed. "Plus, I hate to see you so worried. We'll go talk to Gideon today, okay?"

"You really don't mind?" asked Dipper hopefully, finally turning in his bed to face Mabel.

"Of course not, silly," she replied happily, already pulling on a sweater. "Race you to the kitchen!"

Laughing, the two siblings shoved their way down the stairs.

* * *

><p>After a quick breakfast, the Pines twins went to the city prison, where they found Gideon Gleeful sitting indolently in a small, grey cell, arms limp and eyes downcast. When he noticed the twins, however, Gideon straightened up and put on a bitter smile.<p>

"Why, Mabel Pines! What a delight to see you, my peach dumpling, why, yes it is!" Gideon remarked snidely, his strong southern accent making his speech even more cacaphonous to the ears. "How nice of you to finally visit me in my humble abode."

"I am not your peach dumpling! In fact, I'm not even a dumpling at all! So ha!" Mabel replied defiantly.

Dipper ignored their bickering. "Gideon, we need to ask you a couple questions regarding…the last time we saw you," he said, peering through the metal bars and into the cell. Gideon sat on his small, undecorated bed and stared back at Dipper with tired but angry eyes. His once perfectly poufy white hair was now deflated and strewn everywhere. His puffy cheeks, though still chubby, were creased with new lines of resentment, making him look even more dangerous than before. After a moment of this glaring contest, Gideon started to laugh – a hideous, almost maniacal laugh.

"You want me," he managed to get out between bouts of twisted laughter, "to help you? And how can I be of your service?" he added condescendingly, giving Dipper a mocking bow and continuing to laugh.

"We need to know everything about your giant robot," declared Dipper forcefully over the din of Gideon's twisted mirth. "How it worked, what fuel it ran on, everything. Was it electric? Nuclear? Magical?"

"Or was it science?" said Mabel, leering at Gideon. Her comment produced more peals of laughter from the little prisoner.

"Oh, you and your simpleminded brother are just so precious," he cackled.

"He's not simpleminded! He's… he's, uh… complex-minded!" countered Mabel accusingly.

Gideon's face suddenly turned devoid of any lightness whatsoever. He gave the twins a menacing scowl and said, "Listen carefully, y'all. I've told you time and time again that this town has secrets that you couldn't begin to comprehend."

Dipper started to reply with a biting remark, but Gideon abruptly grabbed the bars in front of him, causing both him and Mabel to flinch back.

"You think you've won, haven't you?!" Gideon nearly screamed, shaking the bars vehemently. "You think that because I'm here and locked up, there's no more danger to befall you two, huh. Well, you're wrong! You have never been more wrong in your entire lives." Gideon's ragged eyes bore into the twins, as though they were drills and Dipper and Mabel were pieces of wood. "Something big is going to happen. It will come soon, sooner than you could imagine, and you will not be able to escape the wrath it brings! Mark my words: you will ALL pay great recompense for your acts against me!"

Dipper, mustering all of the courage he had, grabbed the bars in front of Gideon and shouted, "Who built that machine? How did you get that machine to run?"

Gideon started to laugh again, even more terribly than before. "Oh, Dipper," he crowed, "Only a crazy old coot like Old Man McGucket would ever think about superfluous questions like those ones at a time like this!"

"Wait…crazy old coot…" Mabel muttered to herself. "Dipper! Didn't Old Man McGucket build that huge giant robot lake monster earlier this summer?"

"Wait a sec! Yes, yes Mabel, he did!" exclaimed Dipper, forgetting about Gideon's invective.

Gideon turned pale. "No, no… but aren't you worried about what harm kind of harm will befall you two?" he stammered.

"And he said that he had built other robots before!" added Mabel, ignoring Gideon.

"Ones that could destroy entire towns!" Dipper noted, flipping through his notebook.

"No! Don't worry about that old man!" said Gideon nervously, backing up slightly from the jail cell bars. "He's not important!"

"Sure sounds like it is," said Mabel, giving Gideon her own semi-maniacal grin and poking Gideon through the bars. "It sounds like you're…hiding something from us!"

"No! I'm not hiding anything!" said Gideon, visibly perspiring. All of his intimidating showiness had disappeared, and he couldn't keep his voice from trembling.

"Old Man McGucket! Of course! Why didn't I make that connection in the first place?" wondered Dipper aloud. He shut the notebook and announced, "Alright, Mabel. Let's go see what secrets Gideon's got to hide with Old Man McGucket, shall we?"

"Yeah! Mystery Twins!" Mabel cheered. Laughing, hey raced down the prison hallway as Gideon screamed after them, "No! Don't go there! I got nothing there!"

* * *

><p>"Did you think Gideon was acting kinda strange back there?" Mabel asked. Their run had slowed to a peaceful walk, and they wandered idly towards the dump where McGucket spent most of his days.<p>

"Well, yeah," said Dipper nonchalantly. "That's what living in jail with a bunch of criminals is going to do to you."

"But something just doesn't seem right," confessed Mabel, speaking seriously for once. "How easily he gave away the hint about Old Man McGucket."

"I think I know why you feel this way," said Dipper, stopping and turning around to face her. "Mabel, you don't have to feel bad for Gideon. He's not going to spend more than a year or two in jail, and knowing how rich he is, he'll probably bail out soon enough. Plus, don't you remember? Not too long ago, he kinda tried to destroy us." He put a hand on her shoulder, but she pushed it away.

"No, it's not that. I just got a bad feeling about the whole thing. I feel like he's hiding something more than the thing he was afraid that we would find at McGucket's," she said, looking down and scuffing her toe against the ground.

"How about we just check out what he really has to hide, huh?" said Dipper. "Maybe it'll become clearer after we figure out more to this puzzle."

"But we have to be careful, okay? Promise me you'll be careful," pleaded Mabel.

Dipper laughed. "YOU'RE asking ME to be careful?"

"I'm serious!" she said, crossing her arms and giving Dipper a glare.

Dipper gave her a reassuring smile and poked her on the arm. "Of course, sis. I promise I'll – we'll – be careful."

"Hey look over there!" yelled Mabel, pointing behind Dipper. He spun around quickly. "What? Where?" he asked, looking around frantically.

"Here," said Mabel behind him. Dipper twisted around and promptly turned his cheek into Mabel's finger.

"Hey!" he shouted indignantly.

"That was for poking me in the arm!" Mabel crowed, laughing and running away from her brother.

"What? That's not fair!" he called back jokingly, sprinting towards her. "Hey, wait up!"

"You're gonna have to be faster than that!" she shouted over her shoulder. Filling with new energy, the two siblings sped towards the dump, their previous ominous feeling disappearing behind them.

* * *

><p>When the twins were out of sight, Gideon's face contorted into an ugly smile. He shuffled back to his bed, sat down, and began to utter an incantation under his breath.<p>

_"Triangulum, entangulum. Veneforis dominus ventium. Veneforis venetisarium!"_ he chanted quietly. His eyes turned completely white, and he began to double over and frantically mumble gibberish. After several seconds, he straightened up, his eyes still completely white.

"So how did I do?" Gideon asked to the empty cell, grinning.

His voice changed, becoming slightly lower, grainier, and multiplying itself, as though multiple voices of the same quality were speaking at once. "Not bad, kid! I'm impressed! I didn't think you'd be able to convince them."

His voice changed back to normal. "I hope you remember our deal, Bill Cipher."

His voice changed again to Bill's voice. "Wouldn't forget it in a million years."

Gideon's eyes returned to normal. He shook his head, clearing his mind. Then, he started to laugh, even more maniacally than he had all morning. The sound resounded through the hallway, filling the entire air with despair. He shook his fist at the wall. "I will have my revenge on you, Dipper and Mabel Pines!" he yelled.

The man in the cell across from Gideon, lying on his bed, opened one eye to stare at him. "Um, sir, you mind keeping it down a bit? I'm trying to take my mid-morning nap," he grumbled in a low voice.

"Oh, sorry," squeaked Gideon, ceasing his cackling. The man let out a short sigh of exasperation and rolled over on his bed. However, after only a few minutes of silence, Gideon couldn't help but continue to laugh evilly at his own diabolical plan.

The man across from him let out another brusque sigh. "Nutjob," he muttered under his breath, covering his ears with a pillow.


	4. Into the Junkyard

Once the twins arrived at the city dump, they set about looking for Old Man McGucket to continue the search for clues to solve their mystery. After about an hour of thorough searching, though, the only interesting thing they saw was a moldy corn dog, which elicited a "Ooh! Look at the pretty green fuzz! It matches my sweater!" from Mabel. Other than that, they only saw trash.

"Face it, Dipper, we're not gonna find him here today," said Mabel, wiping a bead of sweat off her brow. "Maybe we should go home and come back another day."

"No! He has to be here somewhere! He's hiding from us!" Dipper almost shouted. He leaned down onto his knees and started to fumble through the bottom of a huge pile of garbage.

"Dipper. Focus. I know this whole thing means a lot to you, but you need to be able to look at other things in your life too," said Mabel, coming over and squatting next to him.

Dipper looked over at Mabel with growing guilt, and then down at himself with growing disgust. They were covered in dirt and dust. Mabel had a strip of plastic stuck to the sleeve of her green sweater and metal bits in her hair, while he had mulch chips and some sticky substance on his shirt. He dug into a pocket and found an old tin can that had fallen in there by accident.

"But there's gotta be something here! Gideon wouldn't act like that on purpose!" he said defiantly. But the defeat was visible in his eyes, and he sat back and sighed.

"Maybe, maybe not," said Mabel. She smiled. "Let's just come back another day, right? I mean, we didn't see anything weird in the whole dump."

She gestured with her arms, swinging them apart wildly to show the magnitude of their search. Her hand knocked off an old fan stuck deep in the garbage pile next to her. Suddenly, the pile shifted slightly, rippling up through the metal trash. The twins looked up. A rubber tire was hurtling towards them from on top of the pile!

"AHHH!" they screamed, running in opposite directions. The tire careened off of some bottles on the ground and went flying. It struck another pile of garbage with a _CRASH!_

Before the dust even settled, Dipper came out of hiding behind an old rusty golf cart. "Mabel? Mabel, are you okay?" he called, coughing. When no one responded, he started to worry. "Mabel!" he shouted, panicked.

"Dipper! You gotta come check this out!" Mabel called back. Relieved, he jogged over to his sister, only to find a sight that shocked him even more.

"Holy mackerel," he breathed. The tire had collided into another pile of garbage. Interestingly enough, the whole pile survived the crash intact.

But more interesting than that was that the tire made a giant hole in the pile.

Even more interesting was that the inside of the pile was hollow.

"It's like a teepee, but more… garbage-y," said Mabel, waving at the cavern.

The hollowed-out inside of the trash pile was big enough for several people to comfortably stand in. A long, plastic fold-up table was in the center of the room. Unfinished mechanical parts lay strewn about on the floor, illuminated by an eerie pale orange light. In awe, Dipper's eyes followed the light to its source: a white shining crystal, shaped like a tetrahedron, floating in the air. The size of a softball, the crystal was tinged around the edges with orange streaks of light, flaring up and crackling along the facets of the crystal. The light pulsated faintly from the corners of the crystal, connecting itself in a thin chain of light to the inside of the garbage cavern. From there, the light spread like a dome all across the inside of the cavern.

"Is that crystal…keeping the pile from collapsing?" asked Mabel incredulously. "It's so pretty."

"I mean, it sure seems like it," said Dipper, skepticism thick in his voice. "I mean, the part about keeping it from collapsing."

The twins cautiously ventured inside the cavern and peered at the contents on the table. Blueprints of what seemed like a metal Godzilla were strewn across the table. Chewed-up pencils with broken stubs lay in abundance.

Then something in the corner of the cavern caught Dipper's eyes that made him freeze. He blinked four times. He pinched himself twice. Nothing happened. _Is it real? _Dipper thought, still staring into the corner of the room.

"Mabel, do you see that? Do you see what I'm seeing?" asked Dipper slowly, pointing at the object in question, not daring to take his eyes off of it. Mabel carefully peered over into the corner. When she saw what Dipper was pointing at, she quickly sucked in a breath.

Laying on the floor was a red-leather-bound journal. The edges were worn and the cover dusty, but the picture on the front was still unmistakable.

A golden, six-fingered hand shined in the eerie orange light, the number "4" printed clearly in black ink. Around the four was a very faint light red triangle, unnoticed by Dipper, that glowed ever so slightly in the relative darkness of the cavern.

Mabel pinched Dipper.

"OW!" he yelped.

"Had to make sure this is real life," said Mabel, laughing.

"I think you pinch yourself when you want to do that," grumbled Dipper, rubbing his arm.


	5. Hello, old friend

"Mabel, there are FOUR journals! Do you know what this means?" Dipper whispered excitedly, rubbing his arm.

"Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh, if I had a can of silly string, I would totally pretend like I'm puking right now," replied Mabel.

Dipper had already moved over to the journal and picked it up. He reverently held the old tome, brushing crumbs of dust from the cover to marvel at the shiny hand. He weighed it carefully in his hand, noting that it had fewer pages than his previous journal. Dipper realized that he missed having the journals around. It was as though he and the journals' author shared a secret that no one else in the world knew.

"BLAAARGH," Mabel blurted out, spraying purple silly string into Dipper's face and laughing in delight at Dipper's unamused face. "Turns out I did have a can of silly string! Wouldja look at that!"

"Mabel!" exclaimed Dipper irritably. He opened the journal to the first page. On the inside cover, the book said _Property of: _and then a large smudge of ink. With a wary interest, Dipper read the note next to the smudge of ink: _Ha ha! Have fun guessing who the author of this book is, because you'll never know!_

"I thought you said that the person who wrote Journal Three suddenly stopped writing in it midway," said Mabel, reading over Dipper's shoulder. "How come he wrote a Journal Four?"

"Yeah, and what made him write such a sarcastic note?" wondered Dipper aloud. With the twins' minds already full of questions, Dipper turned the page. On the first real page of the journal, there was a short introductory message:

_ENERGY. It's all around everyone. It's inside of everyone. Everyone produces it; everyone uses it. But what if it wasn't as simple and straightforward as that? What if, in an already twisted world like Gravity Falls, there are exceptions?_

"This journal must be about energy!" said Dipper excitedly.

"Whaaat?" replied Mabel, peering at Dipper strangely. She tapped Dipper's head. "Are you going cuckoo?"

"No! Mabel, it makes sense!" said Dipper, waving away Mabel's hand. "Each Journal dealt with a different part of Gravity Falls' weirdness. This one deals with magical energy!"

"And ours dealt with Butternut Squashes with Human Faces and Emotions and fake golden dentures," said Mabel, nodding sagely. "I don't know how that makes any sense, but keep going."

Dipper flipped through the beginning pages. "General description of an organism's metabolism… Heat in molecular chemistry… Electromagnetism and the laws of physics… Aha! Here's where it starts to get weird," said Dipper, stopping at a page. "_And now to prove everything I just wrote down wrong: Magical Energy present in Gravity Falls._"

"Whew," said Mabel, pretending to wipe her brow. "And I thought it would all just be science-y stuff."

"_Unlimited energy is impossible,"_ read Dipper out loud, ignoring his sister, "_as there is always a finite amount, however huge, of energy in the universe. Or is it? My findings show that there may be a rather small exception."_

"Hold your horses…" Mabel said as she pointed at the drawing of a tetrahedron right under it. "Isn't that… the same shape as that one?" She pointed to the crystal, floating above the table, spreading a foundation of light for the trash pile cavern to rest on.

Suddenly, the crystal changed colors. Orange faded into a pale red. The flares of light coming out from the crystal abruptly stopped, and instead, the red flares had spread inwards inside of the crystal, bursting at each other as if battling for space inside the relatively small gem. Light stopped flowing from the corners of the crystal. The dome of light supporting the weight of the garbage above the twins began to grow fainter.

"Mabel, we have to get outta here, NOW!" Dipper shouted as he tucked Journal 4 inside his vest. Dipper grabbed Mabel's hand and ran for the opening, bits of trash and dust starting to rain down on the twins.

"Wahhh!" yelled Mabel. Without thinking, she grabbed the crystal with her free hand, tucked it into her sweater pocket and rushed out after Dipper. Not a moment after they burst through the opening did the entire garbage pile collapse, burying the table and everything on it in a rather large pile of trash.

"Mabel! C'mon! Let's go!" yelled Dipper. Still firmly grasping Mabel's hand, he ran with his sister towards the dump entrance. As they turned the corner to the sidewalk, they saw Old Man McGucket, humming a cheery tune. Mabel immediately sprayed Silly String into his eyes before McGucket could see them.

"Sorry," she whispered under her breath, too quiet for anyone to hear.

"Well I'll be darned! I done can't see all right! Did someone turn off the sun? Whee-hee-hee!" McGucket cackled insanely, his own monologue drowning out the pounding of the Dipper and Mabel's feet on the ground as they ran away.

* * *

><p>"You did WHAT?!" cried Dipper, sitting on the floor across from Mabel.<p>

The twins had not stopped running as fast as they could until they reached their room in the attic of the Mystery Shack. With the door bolted and a Kleenex blocking the view through the keyhole, they finally felt safe enough to talk.

"I took the crystal! Look, here it is! Let's see if it still floats," said Mabel, tossing the crystal into the air. Too late, she and Dipper realized that gravity did affect the crystal. It arced down and tumbled onto the floor, but did not crack.

"Mabel!" seethed Dipper, pulling at his hair. "You could have blown up the Shack just now!"

"Oh, don't be silly," said Mabel, getting up to flop down onto her bed. "I couldn't have done that… Right?" she asked, tilting her head up and looking at Dipper hesitantly.

"See, that's the thing: I don't know exactly what this crystal does or can do," replied Dipper, furiously reading the pages of the journal. "Okay, so basically, the crystal is supposed to be a source of unlimited energy. Apparently, it's a portal to another dimension of ethereal chaos and disorder, which is where that magical energy comes from. Don't worry," added Dipper reassuringly, chuckling the look on Mabel's face after she learned that she was holding a portal to another dimension in her hands. "The portal is a one-way passage, from here to there. It says here that the guy who wrote this journal spent many weeks trying to get the portal to work the other way on a crystal – why he would want to do such a thing, I don't know – but he was unsuccessful. You're safe."

Mabel let out an exaggerated sigh of relief and ended up blowing a raspberry unintentionally.

Ignoring her, Dipper continued, "However, through other experimentation, it was found that the crystal could be used as a weapon by shooting beams of light from a corner of it. It can also be used as a power source, equaling energy outputs rivaling that of entire nuclear plants!" Dipper finished the last part with glee. "See! I knew there was something weird about those robots!"

Mabel had gone to pick up the crystal and was now playing with it in her hands. "But why is it red and yucky looking? It looks like it's angry. Are you angry, Mr. Crystal?" she asked the gem in a mocking voice, and laughed.

"Yeah, that part I don't really get either. It says that normally, the crystals are orange, and the "energy flares" are only supposed to be on the outside edges of the crystal. It doesn't mention anything about changing colors… Oh wait. There's a little section right here:_ When the color of the crystal changes color, it reflects a supernatural disturbance in the reality of this world. Through personal experience, I can confidently classify a change to the color red as a sign of great supernatural discord._" Dipper stopped reading and looked soberly at Mabel.

"'Discord'? Doesn't sound too good," said Mabel casually, swinging her legs over the side of her bed.

"Mabel… What if the thing Gideon was talking about, all the 'something big is coming,' – what if it's related to this? What if this is his way of getting revenge on us, for sending him to jail?" asked Dipper slowly.

Mabel stopped swinging her legs, and a slight look of fear started to creep across her features. "Does it say anything else?" she asked, her voice shaky.

Dipper was also having a hard time keep his voice steady. "It says: _In times of said supernatural disturbances, the crystal ceases to function properly. All magical abilities seem to disappear, and it becomes nothing more than a trinket. Only when all four crystals are combined – _wait, what?! There are _four _of them?"

"Keep reading, Dipper!" said Mabel, running over to him and sitting next to him, trying to read the journal over his shoulder.

"_Only when all four crystals are combined, as shown in the next diagram, and left in that manner for a length of time which I am not able to determine do the crystals return to their normal powers." _Dipper and Mabel stared at the journal's sketch of four tetrahedron crystals, each connected to the other three crystals at a corner to form a larger tetrahedron with a hole in middle.

"_However, putting these crystals in such a formation is dangerous and highly discouraged, as, when the combined, the crystals will—"_ Dipper abruptly stopped reading.

"That's it? It just stops?" asked Mabel to no one in particular, peering at the blank space. She flipped to the next page, and the next. There was nothing.

"Huh! Maybe, this guy was writing Journal Four at the same time as Three!" mused Dipper, turning back to the last page of writing.

"Yeah, that makes sense," said Mabel, turning the page again to stare at the first blank page. Neither of them noticed the faint, thin wisps of red light emerging from the crystal left on Mabel's bed and floating towards the book's cover. Nor did they notice the red triangle on the front cover start to glow even more fervently as the light approached it and finally connected with it.

"He must have thought the information in this Journal even more powerful than the other unfinished Journal, and had to create a new one!" continued Dipper, staring at the ceiling as he thought out loud. He looked down at the page again, and gasped. Mabel, who was copying Dipper to annoy him and was also looking up at the ceiling, glanced at the book and was just barely able to stop herself from screaming.

Words started to form out of nowhere on the blank space of the first page without writing. The red ink silently appeared and transmuted into embellished penmanship, deliberate and smooth.

Dipper and Mabel read the first sentences with a sense of growing dread. _Hey kids! You really are a lot smarter than I thought! _the empty pages of the book now read.

"Mabel…? Do you know what that is?" asked Dipper. He hugged his sister, his still eyes on the page.

"How am I supposed to know what that is?" Mabel replied back, irritated and alarmed at the same time. She hugged Dipper back.

Words continued to form. _It seems like you've figured a lot of stuff out, huh? Are you proud of yourselves yet? But you're not smart enough to figure out the easiest enigma of them all: me! Guess you're not so great at solving mysteries, are you, Dipper and Mabel? Shooting star, pine tree… I wonder why you were included at all._

"AHH!" Dipper noticed the light chain emitting from the crystal and connecting to the journal; he hurriedly dropped the journal on the floor.

"How does it know our names?!" Mabel almost shrieked.

_Oh, I know lots of things,_ the unknown writer continued as Dipper and Mabel leaned over to read, loath to touch the magical book. _But I knew that choosing not to destroy was a good choice! You kids are going to be a lot of help to me after all._

Dipper silently reached over and grabbed his own notebook and a pen, and started to scribble a note to Mabel, reluctant to talk in front of the omniscient journal. _I think it's Bill Cipher,_ he wrote hastily.

Mabel grabbed the pen from his hand and wrote, _How?_

_Very good! _the unknown writer wrote in response. Dipper sucked a quick breath; it seemed as though Bill could read their minds even in the real world. _But like I said, that was the easy part. There will come a time sooner than anyone, even maybe I, could expect. On that day, the fate of your beloved Gravity Falls will rest in your little hands. Anarchy will ensue, and your treasured townspeople will show themselves to be who they really are. And here's the fun part: you won't be able to save your town. And it'll all be on you guys! _

"That's it!" cried Mabel defiantly, standing up abruptly. "It's one thing to threaten and scare us, but I'm not letting some dream demon say even one bad word against our Gravity Falls!" She rushed over to the crystal and brazenly picked it up.

"Mabel, no!" shouted Dipper. "The crystal could attack you!"

But Dipper knew that when his sister got into that certain state of determination, nothing short of death or a miracle would stop her. The furious look on her face said it all. Delicately clutching the crystal by her fingertips, she rushed over to her bedpost, drawing out the light chain. She hooked the chain around the bedpost and jerked the crystal with all of her might. The chain broke, the sound of shattering glass resounding through the room as the red wisps of light dissipated.

_You can't stop what's coming! _the writing appeared, but the red ink was growing fainter. _You can't stop m_

The ink finally disappeared.

"Ha! See! Bill was going to write 'You can't stop Mabel!'" crowed Mabel, dusting her hands as she read the journal's final message.

"I think he was going to write 'You can't stop me,'" replied Dipper drily.

"Yeah, yeah," Mabel laughed, lightly punching her brother in the arm. Suddenly, she grew somber.

"What do we do now?" she asked.


	6. To Throw Away or Not to Throw Away

**A/N: Hello, storyman123123 here. I'm back, and better than ever! I hope you all will forgive my extremely long and unannounced hiatus. I meant to return immediately after school started, but I had a music competition and then developed some debilitating physical complications. I'm still recovering but well enough to continue writing, and hope to finish "Journal Number Four" by the end of the summer. So without further ado, happy reading! As always, please leave reviews; they're the cherries on top to writing stories for you guys.**

Back in his cell, Gideon sat on his bed, perfectly still, like a cat stalking its prey. His eyes, previously closed shut, quickly fluttered open in the silence. A few seconds later, the footsteps of a guard came walking down the hallway. He carried a tray of food, which he presented to Gideon through a slot between the bars. Gideon, still sitting upright, received the food, but did not eat. He had eaten almost nothing while at the prison – just enough to survive.

Instead, he grabbed the pen that was on the tray and wrote a short note on said napkin. He pushed the tray, napkin and all, out of his cell. The guard read the note and nodded to Gideon, who gave him a somber grin.

The guard glanced down at the note again, almost as though it were surreal. He blinked and reread it, making sure he was seeing correctly.

_I think it's time to unleash our little friend into the lake._

* * *

><p>"I am NOT going to sleep with that thing and that journal in my room," stated Mabel forcefully, literally putting her foot down to emphasize her point.<p>

"Then what do you suggest?" asked Dipper in a tired voice, crossing his arms.

"Give it to Grunkle Stan! Make him hide somewhere or something!" Mabel replied quickly, waving her arms at Dipper.

"And like I've said already a thousand times, I don't think that's a good idea!" retorted Dipper. Mabel let out a huge sigh, but Dipper continued. "It's weird. Grunkle Stan took my other journal because he wanted to use some of the weird things it described in the Mystery Shack, but ever since then not even one new attraction from that journal's been used. He's definitely hiding something about why he really wanted that journal."

"C'mon, Dipper, stop being all paranoid," replied Mabel. "Grunkle Stan probably just forgot about the journal. He forgets a lot of stuff. Like the time he forgot how to use a coffee maker."

* * *

><p><em>Flashback<em>

Dipper and Mabel walked into the kitchen and promptly slipped on a huge puddle of coffee on the floor. Mabel was able to grab the counter in time to catch herself, but Dipper was not so lucky: he fell on his back in the puddle with a _splash!_

"Grunkle Stan, coffee isn't the best way to clean a floor, silly," said Mabel, righting herself.

"Yeah, Grunkle Stan. What the heck happened in here?" asked Dipper, brushing off what liquid he could.

At a loss for words, Stan stared at his great-nephew and great-niece, peeking out from behind his coffee-splattered glasses. His white sleeveless shirt was now stained dark brown and drops of coffee rolled off his arms.

"Uh… I'm not here right now! It's not actually me!" he said hurriedly. He threw down a smoke bomb, and with a _POUF!_ and a cloud of pink smoke, he was gone.

Coughing, the twins looked at each other quizzically. After a couple seconds, Mabel managed to say "Whaaaaaat?"

* * *

><p><em>Back in the present time of the story<em>

"Still, I just don't feel comfortable giving it to Stan," protested Dipper. Mabel turned away and walked towards the triangular window, the setting sun spreading warm-colored rays across her face. She squinted into the horizon, the realization of the time of the day dawning on her.

"Dipper, we've basically wasted this whole day over this stupid crystal," she said reproachfully.

"Well, actually, it's not that stupid; it seems to be capable of even hosting the conscience and mind of other beings—"

"Dipper! Could you _please_ stop thinking about magical things for once? I know this is important to you. But it's also _our _summer, and we shouldn't spend all of it just arguing over just a crystal." She flopped onto her bed and sighed again.

Again, Dipper felt a sense of growing guilt build up in an uncomfortable lump in his gut. After a moment of thought, he walked over to his sister and sat on her bed.

"How about we take the evening off?" he offered tentatively. "I think Stan was planning to have a bonfire with everyone later tonight. You know, roast s'mores, tell stories – the whole deal."

Mabel looked up doubtfully, unsatisfied. "And the journal?" she asked. "I'm still not sleeping with that thing under the same roof as me."

"How about we hide it somewhere else with the crystal? We could bury it somewhere in the forest, or maybe put it in a plastic bag and hide it in the lake," he suggested.

Mabel turned to him with a grin. "Yeah, let's go to the lake! You drive the cart," she added quickly, a split second before Dipper could say it.

"Ah man," he complained. But he got up, smiling, and made his way down the stairs and out of the Shack. Mabel flounced down behind him. "We'll be back in a sec, Grunkle Stan," they called into the parlor as they left.

"Fine!" he yelled back gruffly from his armchair. "Kids," he muttered, turning his attention back towards the episode of _Baby Fights _on the TV.

* * *

><p>The drive to the lake passed by quickly and silently; both Dipper and Mabel were deep in thought.<p>

_Am I really so wrapped up in magical stuff? I mean, it's not like my life's sole purpose is figuring out all this magic. I haven't sacrificed anything for it yet, have I?_ Dipper thought himself as he turned another corner.

_Why won't he understand that he's so wrapped up in magical stuff? _Mabel thought simultaneously. _He's sacrificing his entire summer just to get to the bottom of some stupid thing that's probably one big joke._

When the cart finally screeched to a halt next to the lake, Mabel quickly tumbled out and sprinted towards the water. As she waded through the shallow water and searched for a hiding spot, Dipper remained seated behind the wheel. He breathed out loudly. He knew he had to let the crystal go; he wouldn't do anything to harm his sister or make her feel bad.

But something inside of him told him not to get up just yet. He wasn't completely sure that this was the best course of action.

Mabel ran up to him, spraying him with flecks of lakewater. "Hey, Dip! C'mon, let's get a move on," she cajoled. "We don't want to keep Grunkle Stan and that bonfire waiting."

"Mabel, listen," Dipper began, though he knew he was fighting a losing battle. "I was just thinking—"

"Oh no. You were not just thinking that we should keep this crystal. You were not thinking that for even one second!" Mabel enunciated forcefully. "Unless a giant monster comes out the lake and tries to attack us, we are leaving this crystal—"

"Shh, Mabel!" Dipper suddenly whispered.

"Don't you shush me, I'm talking," retorted Mabel, but Dipper grabbed and shoved her below the seat. He crouched next to her.

"What was—"

"I said shh!" whispered Dipper forcefully.

Nothing happened, but Dipper motioned that they remain silent. Finally, they heard someone whistling.

"Who…?" started Dipper.

"Shh!" Mabel slapped Dipper's mouth shut.

They peered over the dashboard and watched the man walk near the water's surface. He was only feet away from them; the only reason he hadn't seen them was because night was falling, cloaking the twins in dark invisibility.

"He's wearing a uniform… is he some kind of security guard?" Mabel asked.

"Shh!" Dipper slapped Mabel's mouth shut.

The guard took out a small silver stone. Still whistling cheerfully, he skipped it out onto the lake. Then he turned and walked the way he came. Pretty soon, the whistling was inaudible and he was gone.

Mabel and Dipper sat for a moment in stunned silence, then Mabel turned to Dipper and playfully shoved him. "Hey, you poophead… I was really worried there for a sec."

"So was I," breathed Dipper, smiling in relief.

Mabel chuckled. "All the guy wanted to do was skip a stone on the lake. It was a nice stone too… it was so shiny—"

The lakewater churned. A horrible, gurgled roar echoed through the night, provoking nesting birds to take off into the sky.

A giant, humanoid-like creature sliced through the water's surface. Its slim, silver skeleton was made entirely out of interlocking blades that sliced through the air with big _whooshes _as the monster swiveled around.

Its glowing eyes locked on the cart, and to the twins' horror, it lunged towards Dipper and Mabel.

"Dipper! Pedal to the metal! NOW!" Mabel yelled.

"But what about the crystal?" Dipper yelled back.

"Are you nuts?!" Mabel retorted back. They glanced at the silver monster slicing towards them, closing the distance quickly. In a few seconds, it would be in range to rip the cart in half – and anything in it.

"Pedal to the metal," Dipper replied hurriedly, and they sped away, leaving the monster in a trail of dust. Quickly realizing the futility of the chase, the monster slithered back into the water and streaked towards the horizon.


	7. Return of the Merman

**Told you I'm back. Also, just a redundant reminder, but will say it anyway - I do not own Gravity Falls or any of the characters.**

They did not speak of the crystals for six days, which was fine with Dipper and Mabel. Even Dipper later agreed that whatever the crystal meant, one thing was for sure: they meant trouble. So they stayed quiet and avoided talking about it, or anything magical. Almost dying at the hands (or rather, the knives) of a silver monster made of razorblades does that to you.

Then, on the seventh day, everything – absolutely everything – changed.

Dipper and Mabel were taking Stan's old boat out for a ride with Wendy. The white crests of water sparkled in the sun as the three zoomed around like maniacs, sharing peals of laughter at no particular thing but the general bliss of a beautiful summer day on the lake.

Eventually, the trio stopped their crazy boat ride long enough to have some lunch. As they munched on PB&J sandwiches, Mabel crowed happily, "There is nothing that can make this day better!"

At that moment, they heard a small knocking on the side of the boat. The three peered over to see Mermando with a slightly worried but nevertheless relieved smile.

"Hello, my friends," he said, his brusque, warm voice vibrating through the air. "I am sorry I have not come back earlier."

"I take it back I take it back I take it back!" Mabel cried happily. She jumped right into the water, clothes and all, and tackled Mermando in a hug.

"Mabel, Mabel," he said with obvious content, hugging her back. "An inexpressible joy to see you again."

"Hey Mermando," said Dipper, tipping his hat.

"Uh, who's this?" asked Wendy, who had been trying to make some sense of the scene and failing. "And why is Mabel in the water hugging him? And… why does he have a tail where his feet should be?!"

"It's complicated," replied Dipper. "He's basically Mabel's boyfriend merman."

"Mabel's boyfriend merman," repeated Wendy. She closed her eyes and shook her head. "This is just ridiculous."

Laughing, Dipper turned back to Mermando. After he helped a sopping wet Mabel back into the boat and tossed her a towel, he leaned over the edge and faced the merman.

"Well, Mermando, it's good to see you, but we haven't heard from you in ages," he began.

"Actually, I don't think it's even been a month," interjected Mermando.

"Feels like ages," commented Mabel from under a towel. Mermando smiled.

Ignoring the two, Dipper continued, "You'd only come if there was an emergency. Is everything all right?"

Mermando's smile quickly turned into a pensive frown. "Actually, no. We do have an emergency. This."

He produced a pouch, and opened it to reveal another red crystal, identical to the one Dipper and Mabel had found. Staggering back, Dipper stared at the crystal in shock.

"That crystal is pretty far-out," Wendy whistled.

"Have you seen this before?" inquired Mermando, noticing Dipper's bewilderment.

Dipper waved it off. "Carry on," he said, trying to steady his voice. "What happened?"

Mermando took a deep breath. "Just yesterday, the crystal went out. This crystal happens to have magical properties, in that it exudes free and seemingly unlimited energy that can be easily harnessed and put to use. My people have used it for as long as I can remember – centuries, possibly. An automated weapon, fueled by this crystal here, defends our underwater metropolis.

Just today, a sea monster unlike any other attacked my people. Without energy, the weapon would not function and the monster is probably laying waste to the city as we speak, if he has not destroyed it yet. Many people have died trying to defeat it without the weapon, and I knew I had to do something more drastic. I convinced the great mermen council to let me come to you for help."

"Wow. Did you just say that whole story in one breath?" said Wendy.

"Well, technically, I have gills, so it is not as difficult as it looks—"

"Hey. Mermando. Stay focused," Dipper interrupted. "What did the monster look like?"

Mermando shuddered. "It was big. Big and silver," he said, eyes staring off at the horizon. "It had beady, glowing eyes, and seemed like it was made of a thousand knives, all woven together, like a skeleton."

Mabel approached the side of the boat. "Hey, Dip, that sounds just like monster we…" Her voice trailed away as she caught sight of the crystal. Pointing at it, she stammered, "That's… That's the…"

"Have you seen this before? Where? Do you know how to fix it?" Mermando fired the questions like bullets, his distress clear.

"We… we have," Dipper said, choosing his words carefully. "But I'm sorry, Mermando. We don't know how to fix it – hey!"

Mabel frantically flipped through Journal Four that she swiped from Dipper's vest. "Here!" she proclaimed triumphantly, holding up the page with the diagram of the four crystals. "We have one of them too!"

"Wait, what?" Wendy interjected, quickly scanning the pages. "You have one? And what are those numbers right there?"

"What numbers?" asked Dipper, peering at where she was pointing. Underneath three of the crystals, there were the numbers _6, 1, _and _8 _respectively. "Huh. Never noticed that before. I wonder what they mean…"

"But you have another crystal?" asked Mermando excitedly.

Dipper sighed. "Yes, we have one," he said reluctantly. "And apparently, if we find three more like it and put them together in some weird formation, it'll fix the crystals, put them back to normal. But we only have the one," he warned Mermando, who had brightened at then news. "Don't get your hopes up. We don't know how to find two others…"

"I'm sure they'll turn up at some point," said Mabel, reaching over the edge and patting Mermando on the shoulder.

"Mabel, be realistic," said Dipper exasperatedly. "I don't mean to be a downer, but it took forever to find the first one. We don't even know where to look, and Mermando doesn't have much time. There has to be another way to help you, Mermando."

The four lapsed into a gloomy silence, only to be interrupted by the electric crackling of "Stairway to Heaven" emitting from Wendy's phone.

"Hold on," said Wendy, "Gotta take this."

She swiped the phone screen. "Oh hey Tambry. Nah, just hanging out with Dipper and Mabel for a change, haven't seen them in a while… no, no I haven't," she said with a worried look. "There's been a _what?_ …Okay, I'm coming to see this myself."

"We'd better head back to town," Wendy said immediately after ending the call.

"Why?" asked Mabel. "We gotta help Mermando!"

"Trust me, this will help Mermando," replied Wendy somberly.

"How?" asked Dipper.

"Because I think I've found your next clue as to where the other crystals are," she replied. "Just like Merman-boy's town here…"

"Mermando," Mermando interjected stuffily.

"Sorry. Mermando's town here," said Wendy, "Gravity Falls is facing an energy crisis. No one has any power."

"Could there be another crystal in your town?" asked Mermando.

In response, Dipper fired up the boat engine. "Let's find out," he said.


End file.
